A Day in Bijapur

The first thing you notice while traveling from Maharashtra to Karnataka is that the buses are much less deadly in the latter. And the roads smoother. And the scenery nicer. And the fuel prices lower. But I digress.

I rolled into Bijapur around noon, and booked a room in Santosh lodge, opposite the bus station. The rooms are clean but cramped and there's no generator backup, but a room w/o TV is a good deal at 250 Rs/night (300 w/ TV).

In the evening I went out to see Ibrahim Roja and the surrounding monuments. Visited the Jod Gumbaz (twin domes) and the Taj bawdi on the way. The latter was a stinking mess of filth. To put it mildly. Once used as drinking water to all of Medieval Bijapur, the bawdi (well) is now filled with slimy, murky water and chocked with trash. The Jod gumbaz is much better maintained but is used more as a picnic spot thanks to its surrounding lawns.

The Ibrahim Roja ('Roja' means the tomb of a male Muslim) is befitting of the status afforded by the Archaeological Survey of India. It consists of the Roja on the left and a mosque on the right, surrounded by lawns. Situated outside Bijapur's city fortifications, the Roja was built by Ibrahim Adilshah as a would-be tomb for his then-living wife. Building a tomb for a living wife was considered a display of love back then but times have changed; do not try this at home. As fate would have it, Ibrahim passed away before his Begum and became the first occupant of the monument.

Ibrahim Roja

The Ibrahim Roja

The passage down memory lane...

On my way back I paid a visit to the Malik-e-Maidan (meaning 'master of the battlefield' and known in Maharashtra as 'Mulukh Maidan') cannon. 14 ft long and about 5 ft wide (it almost reaches my shoulder!), this 55-ton leviathan was originally used by the Bahmani army against the forces of Vijayanagara at the battle of Talikote. It was brought to Bijapur by 10 elephants and many oxen and men. Its mouth is engraved with a crocodile crushing an elephant in its jaws, representing the Shah's victory over the south Indian Hindu kings.

The fearsome Malik-e-Maidan

Saba-Dome Gigante!

Legs crying out for a breather and hunger starting to rear its head, I returned to my room after satisfying the latter with some jalebi and a plate of delicious roadside chicken.

Backpacking Journal Karnataka #1

Solapur is situated bang in the middle of the flat, featureless Deccan traps. It's hundreds of miles from a mountain range in any direction, and there is very little forest cover. The upshot of it is that it's very hot and very dry. Apart from drying laundry very quickly I couldn't think of any silver lining to that. The most interesting place in the city is the bus station, where rickety buses leave for the Hindu temples of Pandharpur and Tuljapur, and Bijapur.

Pandharpur is the destination of the famous 'Waari' tradition of Maharashtra. Thousands of devotees flock to Pandharpur in the Hindu month of Aashadh to seek the blessings of Vithoba, Maharashtra's interpretation of Lord Vishnu. The waari tradition was established and reinforced by the 17th-century saint-poets Tukaram and Eknath, and the annual march is still going strong 400 years later.

For history buffs, Tuljapur arguably holds an even greater allure. King Shivaji worshipped Tulja devoutly and had the temple rebuilt after it had been desecrated by the Bijapuri commander Afjal Khan.

Unless you are a devout disciple of Vithal or Tulja, give these temples a hearty miss. The Tuljapur temple in particular consists of a ridiculously long wait before you barely see the idol and are immediately rushed out by the temple's rude priests. I have been told there are certain communities in Karnataka that walk all the way across the border to Tuljapur, but I guarantee they don't take as much time doing that as I spent in the long queue at the temple.

The riverside temples of Pandharpur

Gods don't interest me, but I felt like bowing down before their long-suffering devotees, who happily wait in line to catch but a glimpse of their saviour. It is a necessity of the times that the line be kept moving at all costs, but it's despiriting to see the rush for just one glimpse of a god described by saint-poets as the one who greets his devotees with a heartfelt embrace.

Beggars are a much more frequent sight in both temples than the idols themselves. It is another oddity of the human mind that we need more entreatment to feed the living beggars than to offer food to the lifeless idol. We would rather wait in line for an hour to catch one glimpse of an idol than spare a penny for the needy and we would rather pay 10 Rs to have our shoes kept safe in a cloakroom than to buy some much-needed food for a helpless beggar.

The next day I took a bus to Bijapur. Karnataka had a lot to live up to.

दोन मिनिटात । परब्रह्मभेट ।
दिसे का रे नीट । मुख तरी ।।

दोन मिनिटात । मागणे गा-हाणे ।
देवासी सांगणे । कसे तरी ।।

दोन मिनिटात । हललीच रांग ।
कावला श्रीरंग । विटेवरी ।।

Aurangabad: Shadows of a Distant Past

There was a time when Aurangabad was the epicenter of the Deccan Plateau. There was a time when it housed Mughal nobles, and was the headquarters of the Mughal movement across southern India seeking to eradicate an annoyingly rebellious Hindu king called Shivaji.

Only brief glimpses into that time are possible now in the urban jungle, but when you only have two days in hand and a bike, the glimpses are enough.

As I rode into Aurangabad, customarily got lost once and eventually found the hotel I was looking for, It was nearing noon. The ride to the city had been marred by the clutch wire giving up and me having to replace it in a tiny town, but all had been well otherwise. I booked a room in the Lonely Planet-recommended 'Tourist's Home' hotel near Aurangabad rly station.

I dumped my riding gear and sack in the room and, changing into the casual cap-n-camera attire, started off towards Ellora. The road towards the cave complex passes through the town of Daulatabad, which houses the famous fort. Jutting out of the mountain like Rivendell's galleries, the fort looked disappointingly small, but held a distinctly imposing charm. It was too hot for a proper climb, so I (coward, I know) left the fort for another time.

The cave complex has vast amounts of parking, which costs Rs 5, and there is a Rs 10 entrance fee (for Indians). I didn't get a guide, since I was strictly on a budget (and I have a certain amount of knowledge of Hindu mythology), but if you are with a group, getting one is recommended. The complex is meaningless if you don't know what the idols are, and professional expertise of mythology is a welcome addition.

It is also recommended to buy a booklet describing the various tourist spots around Aurangabad. It costs Rs 70, and numerous hawkers all around the complex are all too eager to convince you to get one. For once, it is worthwhile to succumb to a typical touristy lure, since the booklet contains valuable information about the sculptures in Ellora as well as the Ajantha caves.

The caves are scattered in a fairly linear fashion, going leftward from the entrance. A few caves are relatively bare, with just a few reliefs on the walls, but many have distinct idols. Popular scenes include the gods Vishnu and Shiva. Depictions of Shiva dancing the thunderous 'tandava' dance in his 'Nataraj' form is quite popular, as are monuments of various other gods, and animals such as elephants and lions.

What boggles the mind, though, is not necessarily the various depictions, but the sheer size of the whole construction. It is a testament to the power of the human mind, working incessantly to carve volcanic rock into something so spectacular.

Some of the farther caves only fill up in the evening, and are a popular and relaxing spot for an afternoon siesta, the silence only broken by the occasional honking of tourist buses or screeches of swallows and hawks.

The road between Ellora and Aurangabad is littered with countless sugarcane juice sellers, a common streetside refresher particularly in Maharashtra. The scorching April sun had taken its toll on me, and a couple of glasses of virtually pure sugar did a lot to lift my spirits.

My evening meal turned out to be a surprisingly good roadside biryani, bhel, and the everpresent sugarcane juice, on Aurangabad's Station Road. The delicious biryani cost just Rs 30, and I got a whole freaking leg piece! What else could a man possibly want?

The next morning was dedicated to Bibi-ka-Maqbara, a monument built by one of Aurangzeb's sons in memory of his mother. The road leading to the famous monument is, though not the worst I've ever had, in a state of disrepair, and passes through areas that could really use the monument to bring about some development.

The site itself is carefully looked after, and charges the same Rs 10 for Indian tourists as the Ellora Caves. It is a deliberate copy of the more famous and more beautiful Taj Mahal in Agra, and though the inferiour quality is unabashedly obvious (plaster walls, for one), it has a certain unique charm. Unlike the Ellora Caves, a guide is quite unnecessary here, since the buildings are clearly marked and described with placards, and the Rs 50 is much better spent on another plate on the aforementioned sumptuous biryani.

It doesn't take up a lot of your time, and in just over an hour, I was getting ready for the ride back home in my hotel room.

The hotel I stayed at lies very close to Aurangabad Railway Station. It has a helpful staff, clean rooms, convenient location, and a rudimentary restaurant. Double rooms can be booked for Rs 400. Short of a homestay, it is the ideal choice for the budget traveler.

Aurangabad deserves an extended stay, because it is impossible to properly enjoy Ellora, Devgiri, and Ajantha, the three biggies of Aurangabad, in one weekend. The Lonar crater lake, about 140 km from Aurangabad, is one of the very few large crater lakes in the Eastern Hemisphere, and is also worth a visit. A week-long excursion to this city of the Kings can't come soon enough.

7 Life Lessons Learned from Motorcycles

There are many who deride bikes as snooty playthings. Admittedly, there are many who treat their bikes like snooty playthings. However, for every showoff with barf-inducing neon lights fixed underneath his bike, there are hundreds who know their bike inside out, who have learned to interpret every little bump and fizz the bike gives, who are so in tune with their bike that it starts to talk to them.

The Rambler falls very much in the second class. He enjoys every moment spent with his bike, be it in city traffic or on the open highway. He listens to every little noise his bike makes, for it tells him something about his bike that he didn't know before. He listens to what his bike speaks to him, and speak she does! She has taught him more about life than anything else, including education and his parents, ever could.

The life lessons that bike-riding folk like the Rambler have learned from bikes are equally applicable to bike-deriding folk. So what can a non-living living and pulsating thing that is made of plastic and metal and functions on tiny explosions, teach us?

Choke

An engine draws fuel from the bike's tank, and mixes it with air sucked in from its surroundings. On cold mornings, this mixture is not combustive enough to make an engine run properly. This calls for a choke, a valve which forces fuel from the bike's tank into the engine and keeps out the air. This allows the engine to get started and warmed up with minimal fuss. Soon enough, the engine gets warm enough to allow the intake of air, and thereafter, the air flow only works to maximize the engine's output.

The analogy to draw from the choke valve is that in every endeavor you make, you need to force everything you have into it, without relying on or waiting for outside help. Before your idea is strong enough to meet dissenters head on, external influence will do nothing but spoil your best-laid plans. Opinions uninvited, criticism unwarranted, obtrusion undeserved - this is what a nascent idea receives. Only once the idea has been refined and strengthened should you seek outside help. When your plan is strong enough and you are committed to it, opportunities start to fall your way, seemingly of their own accord. The idea becomes strong enough to convince dissenters to change their mind, and feeds off the support.

Servicing

After a few months or a few thousand kilometers of relentless riding, undesirable deposits start to collect in an engine. Nuts and bolts start to come loose. Cables start to fray. The electronic components start to go wonky. The accumulated dirt and grime start to corrode the underlying paintwork. The lubricant starts to become stale and useless. This calls for a servicing, where the exterior is polished to a sparkling finish, the air filter is scrubbed clean, the engine is cleaned and refreshed, the cables and nuts and bolts are tightened, and the essential fluids are refilled.

Our unavoidably hectic lifestyle in these times of plenty forces us to pile on stress and frustration onto our mind and body. The inevitable result: frustration, sleeplessness, indigestion (urrgh, I know!), short temper, chronic weakness, lethargy, a weakened immune system, and a whole lot of other ailments.

Your mind and body deserve a refresher once in a while. The 'six-month vacation twice a year' jokes aside, there is no shame in demanding some 'me time', however cheesy that may sound. Instead of spending Sundays slumped on your sofa, head out into the ever-welcoming embrace of Mother Nature. Go on a hike, go camping, go to a beach, go on a wildlife trail. Not to state the obvious, but hey, go for a bike ride! Let the greenery / the laughter around a bonfire / the lull of the waves / the tense silence of the jungle / the brash wind on your face at 85 kmph wash away the layers of grime you have been unwittingly accumulating. If that is too big a leap for you, just try to switch off that bloody phone of yours for a day. Disconnect from the rest of the world. Tick off some items off that movie wishlist of yours. If you don't have a movie wishlist, shame on you, make one!

Riding Gear

The point of wearing full riding gear on 1000-mile road trips is not just acknowledging that you can make a mistake, but being ready for the idiocy and recklessness of others. You may think you are the most accomplished rider in the country, but even discounting the quite plausible possibility that you are entirely wrong about that, there is no way you can adjust to a drunk driver suddenly veering into your lane, leaving you with two equally grim choices.

In life, as on a bike, there's bravery and there's stupidity. By all means, be impulsive and make your own way through life, but be prepared for cockups along the way. Always make provisions for possible adversities. However confident you may be in your capabilities, no one is perfect. Even if you are perfect, in which case I need to know your secret, you depend on others in a myriad ways, and they may not always be up to scratch. It would be stupid to recommend pessimism, but a dose of realism would sit well with an optimistic mind.

Corners are Memorable

Ask any rider worth his salt about the best road he's ever driven on, and he'll regale (and sometimes bore) you with tales of the twisty bits on a mountain road. No rider likes a road that goes straight as a needle for more than 10 km. Did I say 10? That is too much! Nobody remembers the straights; they are just not that memorable. Sure, it's nice for a while if there's greenery either side of you or if you are riding into the sunset, but after some time, you inevitably find yourself craving the smallest of kinks in the road.

Likewise, the boring, open stretches in life may be easy, but nobody lies on a deathbed wishing he had been more normal, more routine, more clockwork. It's always the more adventurous, riskier times in life that you remember. Sure, the linear trajectory of John Everyman's life is easy and safe, but a roller coaster is much more satisfying.

Focus On the Road

Music blasting in your ears, neck craned to hold a cell phone in place, alcohol surging around your system, drowsiness making it a struggle to open your eyes while blinking - these are some of the worst conditions to be in while riding a bike. These conditions mean that you can't concentrate on what lies ahead of you. The road is not a place to close or avert your eyes. Potholes, animals, and primarily other road users, are all notoriously unpredictable elements for a biker. A sleepy biker can nod off and cause a horrible accident. A biker on the phone will not be able to react quickly to any potential danger. A drunk biker will almost certainly cause a horrible accident at some point. You need to focus on just the road when you are on the bike, nothing else.

Despite the many disadvantages of multitasking, we live in a time where being able to do it is considered a badge of honor. Contrary to popular belief, multitasking doesn't help you accomplish many things at once, but rather leads you to messing up many things at once. While we may believe that our brain is capable of handling two tasks at once, what the brain actually does is constantly switch attention between the two, so quickly that our conscious self doesn't notice it. For the sake of your own brain, concentrate on what you are doing at the moment. That's what the brain was designed for, and that's what it does best.

Don't Overload Your Bike

A bike, however sturdy it may seem, is only designed to carry a certain amount of weight. Very rarely exceeding this limit for a short period won't hurt the bike, but continual overloading causes numerous problems. The suspension sags, and can cause accidents. The power output suffers terribly even in the short term, since the same amount of power is now distributed over a larger load. The braking distance is significantly increased, due to the increased momentum. The rider's control over the bike is also severely affected, since even tiny deviations to either side are magnified several times over, again due to the increased momentum. The only way to increase the weight limit is to change or enhance the fundamental structure of the bike to strengthen it.

In life, it is important to recognize your limits. While self-confidence is a veritable boon, there is a thin line between confidence and vanity. Don't make promises you can't keep. You will be letting down not just yourself, but someone else who depends on you. Don't try to be someone you are not. If you aren't paid to do so, looking like Hollywood actors can be extremely difficult. Don't base a relationship on a lie. It will come out eventually, and it will cause much more devastation then.

Be comfortable in your own skin. You have unique strengths and weaknesses, just like every other human being in the world. If you really want to change yourself or exceed your limits in some way, bring about the change in a way that you can handle, and in a way that will stick. Fad diets, reluctance to break a dysfunctional relationship, or steroid supplements DON'T WORK. Make long-term, gradual changes that will become the norm, instead of going through a period of extremes, only to slip back into the old, harmful routine afterwards.

Lubricants

Lubricants keep your motor running for longer, lessen the abrasive damage, improving the efficiency as well as power output of the motor. Buffers against the inevitable abrasion, they keep the motor moving smoothly even when it hits temperatures in the thousands of Centigrades. 

There are two major life lessons here: 

One, your physical body needs its own lubricants to jump higher, kick harder, and run faster. Joint pain is one of the most avoidable and yet most prevalent conditions in the world today. Dietary fats improve joint health, and also benefit skin and hair health, so that you can look your best without having to put on makeup every day. The skeletons may define our internal structure, and the muscles may be our powerhouse, but it's the collagen in ligaments and tendons that really keeps the body together. Just ask any sportsperson who has suffered an ACL injury - that shit stinks. 

Second, social lubrication is important for humans. However independent-minded and freethinking you may be, you still need to rely on other people for unavoidable necessities, and the need for companionship is built deep into our genetic foundation. The depiction of John Galt's utopian Galt's Gulch in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged fails spectacularly in this regard, when it depicts industrialists building entire machines - tractors, as a case in point - from scratch by hand with no help from anyone else, as helping other people is seen as a sin in the Gulch. Okay, Randy Ayndy, I'll concede that in general the book is good, but no, one man cannot build a tractor by hand from scratch with no help from anyone else. Just not how it works. 

The story of human progress has been one of collaboration, not isolation. Those societies that stayed together during hard times survived the longest. As an Indian, I can't ignore the fact that repeatedly, foreign invaders have taken and still continue to take advantage of the divisions in Hindu society to conquer us. A few thousand Redcoats from Britain came to a foreign land half a world away, saw what was happening, and built the biggest empire the world had ever seen, based on nothing but a common devotion to Queen and Country, while we Indians kept squabbling about which one of us was the purest and which one didn't deserve to enter our temples and drink from our rivers. Without smooth social lubrication, the global superpower of medieval India was reduced, first to a slave, and then to a global nobody by the time Independence was granted to it. 

These are seven of the lessons the Rambler has learned from his love of the motorcycle. What others can you think of? Let me know in the comments!

Why Do We Travel?

There is only one rationale behind the desire to travel. Oh, people have the darndest explanations about it, but they are all wrong. Nobody needs to travel to 'think', 'figure out their life', or to put a vacation to good use. You can 'think' just as well beneath your roof as you can beneath a star-filled night sky in the desert. Changing your job - or in many cases, getting one - is the answer to most problems of the second category. Vacations can be spent just as well checking off that bucket list of books to read and movies to watch that you never got to. Why, then, do we travel?

Simply put, it's built into our fundamental building blocks. For most of our evolutionary history, we were nomads; dependent upon the seasons for an address, and upon the benevolence of an often-cruel mother nature for sustenance.

Then one day, some lazy nut, who needed an excuse to avoid carrying his quota of rations to the next destination, pointed out that some of the seeds that he had clumsily spilled last month had sprouted, and would be edible in a short time. Agriculture quickly became the norm, aided by similar loafers all over the world, and the nomad was suppressed.

However, we humans have genetic memories that go back beyond agriculture. We also have a striking tendency to become bored. Could it be that the suppressed genetic information from nomadic times is conspiring with boredom to make us want to see more? To eat more? To hear more? To spread our wings and fly beyond the edge of our comfortable nest? Could it be that we humans have simply been too busy turning into sedentary blobs to properly forget what it felt like to have dangers in our path and uncertainty at the end of it? Could it be that those unseen but very much remembered dangers still call out to us?

Could it be that we only truly feel human when we expand our experiences: when we stretch the limits of sanity to levels hitherto unexplored, when we make a conscious, voluntary effort to escape our chrysalis?

That, according to the Rambler, is the only reason why we travel!